Babies Like Haggis

We arrived in Glasgow, Scotland, early last night. It’s a fancy, corporate-type hotel, that attracts a lot of business-types (eh hem, that’s us).

The view from our hotel room in Glasgow

The trip, so far, has been a wonderful culture shock. Being half English myself, I’ve been to the UK many times before, but I’m still fascinated by how different the UK and US are, considering they’re both Western, English-speaking places that carry so many cultural and political similarities. In any one conversation, for example, you will find a number of things a Brit will say to you that leaves you scratching your head. From their name for levels in school (“secondary” vs. “high school) to the fact that our word for “napkin” is very similar to their word for “diaper” (which makes dialogues with restaurant waiters when you have your baby with you very interesting) these conversations will make you think you’ve landed in some parallel universe. However, I always appreciate their politeness in the most unnecessary places…

As I retired to the bathroom for the first time since arriving in our lovely, family-style (that’s with a baby cot) hotel room, I found something I always enjoy seeing in hotel bathrooms: a little sticky thing holding down the first square of toilet paper. This is visible proof that our hotel room has either never seen another human being before me, or that the last person’s remnants have been completely erased from existence. Of course, neither of these things are true. But it is that little sticker on my neatly folded piece of toilet paper showing me it’s a brand new roll (even though it isn’t) that makes me feel just a little bit better about sleeping in a bed, sitting on a toilet, calling from a phone, hitting buttons on a remote control that a million people have before me.

Shooting the welcome reception

We started the gig we came here for today, shooting a video of the World Parkinson’s Congress as a promotional tool for the next conference in 2013. We went through 4 tapes (way too many), 4 batteries, a couple of memory cards, 9 interviews, 3,000 people walking around, an exhibit of quilts, 20 bagpipers in kilts, and 2 pairs of very tired feet.

The WPC quilt exhibit

All in all, a success. Now, we await our 3rd bout of room service since we arrived while hubby digitizes the footage and I (sort of) watch D.B. Sweeney on an episode of (not my favorite) CSI:NY.

The cherry on top of our day was tonight when we learned that our little Monkey likes one of the most famously hated foods: haggis.